


fault lines

by Zannolin



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, I gave you hurt/comfort last time now you get pain, Sad, Techno said pog about Tommy dying and my replies turned to ZANNA FIX IT so, The Syndicate - Freeform, bedrock boys, no beta we die like sleepytwt every time phil tweets, this one goes out to zinnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:00:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29983224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zannolin/pseuds/Zannolin
Summary: There are poppies growing all over Tommy’s sad excuse for a home. The grass is getting overgrown in front of the door and on the roof, and something about that nags Techno. He stands for a moment, looking at the ugly dirt shack, the battered oak doors, and the wild grass swishes and sways in the night wind, brushing at his fingertips.Poppies.Sleep. Remembrance. Death.Techno knows their meaning all too well.
Relationships: Ranboo & Technoblade & Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Technoblade & TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 295





	fault lines

**Author's Note:**

> you got hurt/comfort fixit last time, now it's time to be sad again because techno had the audacity to grind my heart beneath his boot on saturday and I had a couple sick days to write this. basically I was among many people I've seen expressing sadness and disappointment that techno didn't really show like any emotional reaction to tommy's death, which I do get because he's at the very least pretending he doesn't care because he's mad over betrayal etc and he's not an openly emotional person, so when people asked me to write something, I figured I could have a little fun exploring his thought process during and after the stream. plus, I'm sad.
> 
> this is written specifically for zinnia, my beloved fellow oracle. check out [this thread](https://twitter.com/panberries/status/1366821146944024583?s=20) and also follow her!! they are so amazing.
> 
> if you're sad after this, consider checking out my other fics <3 I have several fixits, including a whole series :D

It’s Ranboo who tells them, Ranboo with fresh scars like tears tracing down his cheeks, Ranboo who whispers _why, why did it have to be me_ in such a distraught voice that Techno is actually _concerned_ for a moment.

But then he says something so utterly preposterous, so _impossible,_ that a laugh tears its way out of Techno’s lips. Out of all of their mouths.

Tommy? _Dead?_

No.

“Tommy _can’t_ be dead,” Niki says. “Tommy _can’t die;_ trust me, I’ve tried.”

Techno’s inclined to agree. Tommy, no matter what situation he’s in, no matter what kind of trouble arises, simply…keeps living. He’s stubborn like that. He can’t be dead, because he doesn’t ever _die._

( _I’m gonna be like you,_ a memory from the shadowy caverns of Pogtopia whispers proudly. _Technoblade never dies, and neither will I!_

They might not have been related, but Techno would be lying to himself if he said Tommy didn’t take after him at all.

Fortunately, Technoblade has always been a good liar.)

* * *

First, there is denial, as is the way of things. Phil laughs and Techno snorts, feels such ugly words as _good,_ as _I hated that guy anyways_ claw out of his mouth, because there’s simply no way Ranboo is right.

Niki shakes her head in mild contempt, and Techno has to wonder what history she has with Tommy that would lead to her trying to kill him. Wasn’t she a resident of L’manberg? Wilbur had stood up to defend her at the first festival, he recalls, and she had possessed a kind of softness he sees none of now, like baby fat carved away to chiseled cheekbone and sharp jaw by the hardness of life.

None of them want to believe Ranboo with his sorrowful scars and tired voice, as though he has had to bear the weight of this news to others already, has carried the burden of his grief heavy upon his back until it has twisted and bent and stooped him for good.

Techno catches Phil’s eye for a moment, and they both think the same thing.

_Perhaps we should have a word with Sam about lying to people. To Ranboo._

The meeting moves forward, everyone eager for a distraction, for denial is often a fragile thing, so easily unbalanced by the slightest bit of thought, and the best way to deny the possibility of a truth is to avoid thinking about it altogether.

* * *

Snowchester is a welcome distraction. If Techno spends all his time squinting at the flag and asking Tubbo probing questions, he can almost ignore the boy’s terrifyingly subdued nature, the way his voice is slow and quiet and _numb,_ the way Ranboo shuffles to his side and reaches two fingers to touch his elbow in understanding.

The voices murmur in concern, a babbling jumble of worry and questions, and Techno grits his teeth to ignore them. Tubbo is probably just afraid.

( _As he should be,_ a bitter part of his own mind whispers. _Just look at all the things you’ve done to him. Why wouldn’t he be terrified of a monster like you?_ )

When anger rears its ugly head, Tubbo’s god killers are there, so easy to blame.

Techno prefers anger. It’s much more straightforward. Denial is tricky, but Techno has been handling rage and sound and fury his entire life. It’s simple, easy. After all, you can never be short of something or someone to blame.

And blame he does, snorting at Tubbo’s shitty tunnel and the creepers who cause problems, letting the familiar heat of anger creep into his blood to mask the tingling _concern_ — not fear, never fear — that rises in his chest as he looks across a canyon nearly as deep and wide as all that remains of L’manberg and says the words _god killer._

 _What kind of child builds a weapon that can kill anythin' if he doesn’t want war?_ Techno wonders. He staunchly does not think of the word _retirement,_ of a vault stocked with netherite and bone, heavy with the sickly-sweet stench of soul sand.

( _A child who has lost too much,_ whispers one of the voices, above the clamor in his head. _A child who has everything still to lose._ )

* * *

Anger carries him to the prison on a whim, spinning in the wake of his trident. He sets foot atop the obsidian monstrosity and resolutely does not think of Tommy, who is decidedly _alive_ and _inside,_ and hey, Techno’s no fan of the kid, but leaving him stuck in this hellhole for over a week? With _Dream?_ That seems extreme.

(He feels mining fatigue sink fiercely into his bones and does not think of Pandora and her box, of a dangerous curiosity and hope left all alone inside as monstrosities escaped into the world. He does not think about how Pandora was engineered to _fail._ )

The others are following him, _watching_ him, but Techno says something about _just to see if I can,_ and swings his pickaxe through the ache in muscles and sinews and bone, swings again and again until the smooth blackstone gives way beneath him and all his fury sloughs away, leaving him drained and exhausted. Techno stares down into the prison and thinks of plunging inside, finding Sam and demanding he stop _lying,_ shake him until he explains what he could possibly gain from such a thing.

( _This isn’t bargaining,_ he tells himself, feeling the rain pound on his armor, find its way through the cracks and soak his clothes and chill his skin. _Why would I bargain for something that is of no worth to me?_ )

Techno closes the hole and wonders if this is how Pandora felt.

(He wonders how hope survived in the box before its terrors were let out into the world.)

* * *

They part ways after that, Tubbo speeding away back to Snowchester, exchanging a significant look with Ranboo that Techno can’t quite decipher before he goes.

Techno tends to his dogs, organizes his already organized chests.

(Outside, Phil tells Ranboo of the son he killed, of all the things he regrets. He mentions letters that stopped, but not how many of those letters were filled with glowing descriptions of a scrappy, blond-headed child, a child Wilbur considered a _brother._

When Ranboo leaves, Phil kneels in the snow and erects a tiny cobblestone memorial, right where a tower that Techno called ugly used to mar the pristine landscape.

It’s not for Wilbur.)

* * *

Denial is a dance and anger is mindless but bargaining slips away soft and slow, leaves you bereft and hopeless because what good does bargaining do if you are powerless to bring back what you lost?

Techno is restless.

In the night, he leaves his house and journeys back to Snowchester, telling himself it’s just to investigate things Tubbo might have been hiding from them before. He lies to himself all through the Nether and the soul sand highway, as he walks in the deep shadow of the colony’s stone brick walls.

And then he sees the iceberg, a little ways out from the shore.

He sees the bench, the jukebox, and suddenly he finds his trident in hand and his boots crunching across the ice to smooth cobblestone, staring down at the flowers blooming in spite of the snow.

 _Tommy’s Bench,_ reads one sign in Tubbo’s looping scrawl, so similar and yet so different in comparison to the festival flyers he once handed out. The lines carry more weight now. So does Tubbo, Techno imagines.

 _He was taken from us too soon,_ reads another sign, and in the back of Techno’s mind, the voices wail in agreement.

They always were fond of Tommy.

(Techno tries not to think of what their lack of denial means, but denial is long past him now, and resignation fast approaches.)

* * *

There are poppies growing all over Tommy’s sad excuse for a home. The grass is getting overgrown in front of the door and on the roof, and something about that nags Techno. He stands for a moment, looking at the ugly dirt shack, the battered oak doors, and the wild grass swishes and sways in the night wind, brushing at his fingertips.

Poppies.

_Sleep. Remembrance. Death._

Techno knows their meaning all too well.

Ironically enough, they also stand for hope for a peaceful future.

He wrinkles his nose in contempt, but it’s more _numb_ than anything.

As though there could ever be peace on a server like this. A peaceful future, when Tommy was trapped and beaten to death?

Techno can’t even find the energy to scoff.

He turns and walks away, and bargaining bows her head among the poppies.

(He’s gotten good at that.)

* * *

Depression, Techno finds, is not sharp or bright or soft. It is heavier than armor, than a stone sword weighing your hand down, heavier even than an anvil coming down to crush you. Depression is the cloak around his shoulders, exhausting and bitter and grey.

Sitting on the floor of his home with the snow flurrying outside, Techno buries his scarred hands up to the knuckle in Steve’s coarse, thick fur and does not look at the new floorboards covering a hole and a disused ladder that still descend to the room below his house, empty and cold.

(He refuses to acknowledge how Tommy wormed his way into Techno’s heart and life and carved out a space for himself, just like he did with Techno’s home.

He still cannot ignore the way there is a hole in his heart that _aches._ )

He will sleep now, he thinks. Sleep so he doesn’t have to feel.

Depression is grey and Steve’s snuffling breaths carry him to unconsciousness, and acceptance waits patiently for Techno to awaken. Grief will wait as he sleeps, even if some part of it trails after him into dreams of more golden times, of a loud, rude child with hair like the sun and a grin to match.

(Tommy is determined to follow him everywhere, it seems. Even in death.)

**Author's Note:**

> Find my perpetually angsty ass on [tumblr](https://zannolin.tumblr.com/), [twitter](https://twitter.com/zannolin), and various other sites (same @)! I'm most active on twitter, currently crying over the block men 24/7. 
> 
> You can also find me streaming art, music, writing, and games on twitch, also @zannolin!


End file.
